If the statement is actually scientific and not someone making philosophical claims, then “random” should refer to things for which our best model is probabilistic. It also can refer to a lack of correlation between two factors. In the case of genetics, mutations are random both in the sense of a probabilistic model and in the sense that whether a particular change in DNA happens is not related to whether it would be useful.
Additionally, “random” is typically a component of the null hypothesis. Unless you have sufficient statistical confidence that your hypothesis is better supported than the expectation for random variations, you can’t affirm that your idea is adequately supported. That is often misinterpreted as having proved that something is random. But to do that, you would need to show strong statistical confidence in the other direction, not merely failing to adequately prove that it wasn’t random.
True statistical randomness is actually rare.
This doesn’t help me to understand whether a scientist is in fact saying a remarkable series of events is unintended
“This doesn’t help me to understand whether a scientist is in fact saying a remarkable series of events is unintended”
Science is not particularly able to address that question in an interesting way. The forces of nature have no intents of their own; that is all that science can say. Whether God has an intent for that series of events is not scientifically determinable. It’s a bit like the fact that you could do all sorts of analyses on the electrons transmitting this message without gaining any understanding of the meaning of the message. A biblical example would be the Aramean archer who killed Ahab - the archer thought he was shooting at random, but Micaiah had prophesied that Ahab wouldn’t come back alive and the arrow hit right at the vulnerable spot in Ahab’s armor.
My question or issue is with what the scientist means by saying the events are random. I get that the events have no apparent purpose in themself. Like that quote I mentioned earlier with the guitarist and the tremolo piece.
Can science say an uncaused event is unexplainable? Which also curiously relates to science being able say an indeterminate event is random.
Science is limited to being able to say that certain events do not have well-supported scientific explanations at present. Of course, as far as science goes, “random” may be a component of a reasonably good explanation, such as “which of these radioactive atoms will decay during the next half-life”?
What a scientist means by saying something is random depends on if it is an accurate scientific assessment, in which case it would mean that it is unpredictable in certain ways, or a philosophical assertion, in which case they may mean any number of things, probably not something that was well thought through.
Undoubtedly so. Science isn’t in a position to determine whether an event is caused or uncasued in certain instances. But it should be able to I say, looking ahead, if the event is uncaused, then it would be unexplainable.
Which may well be a quantum phenomenon, but is it that way as a caused or uncaused happening… I’m open to either possibility 